The Vegetarian Festival in Bangkok is celebrated every October of each year. Chinatown is the gathering point for the festivities and you will find rows of temporary stalls selling a wide variety of dishes from sweet cakes to noodle soups.
The best time to come is late afternoon or early evening, around five should be good, so you can get to try the wide delicacy variety offering, enjoy the coming and goings at the temples and catch the Chinese Opera performing on Charoen Krung Road, Soi 20. And be sure to bring your camera, as there are plenty of unusual sights in this colorful part of town.
Getting to Charoen Krung Road is fairly easy. Travelers can take the MRT subway to Hua Lumphong and then either walk for about 15 minutes, past Wat Traimit and through the Chinatown Gate, or simply grab a cab.
During Tesagan Gin Je, or the simply named, Vegetarian Festival, shops and booth stalls that sell food that is in line with the festivals' regulations can be identified by yellow and red flags that are hoist on their roofs and seen above Yarrowat Road. You should also spot stickers and signs in shops across the city, from 7-11 to large shopping malls.
Fake meat is one of the strangest showcases of the Vegetarian Festival in Bangkok. Some of it actually looks exactly like real meat. The flavor, though, varies as there are delicacies such as the satay sticks that could almost be mistaken for the real thing. Unlike most of the sausages taste like tofu they are made out of. Also, garlic and onions are not allowed to be part of the delicacies' ingredients during the festival, hence. Most of the food is kept simple.
Although it is called the Vegetarian Festival, the diet and food offering is strictly vegan, as the requirements include giving up fish, dairy, meat and poultry for nine days as a way to cleanse your body.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
